The news service has been fortunate to host a Year 10 work experience student from Narrabeen Sports High School this past week, with members of the 'Brains Trust' helping out with fundamentals of journalism; the first, second and last drafts of reports, the importance of looking back at history and where everything originated and developed from to provide depth, and how to take photographs to accompany reports.
Nowadays journalists posted to remote locations to cover an event or development must be able to 'do it all' - the ''who, what, where, when, why, and how'' fundamentals - but also be able to film or photograph what's going on to accompany your report before you email it in for the Editors and to go through it and it's released to the website administrators to load/set the webpage and press 'publish'.
Geoff Searl OAM, President of Avalon Beach Historical Society, helped out with what's important when you're researching History, the Editor and the 'cadet' put together this year's Australia Juniors Surfing Titles, with great help from the team at Surfing Australia, Michael Mannington OAM, had our work experience student along for a professional photo shoot for Tilly Rose Cooper's Profile, running this Issue, and Joe Mills, who has received recognitions in the past for his photographs taken on a mobile phone, volunteered a stroll through Warriewood wetlands to demonstrate how to take pictures on your phone.
This is not just choosing what subjects present themselves and how to get decent in focus, fully lit (no point photographing people or anything with the sun behind it, you will only get their outlines and all else will be dark - get some light on it, even side-on and use the flash in daylight) pictures, or how to embed a caption into the image so those at the other end know the 'who, what, where, when, why, and how' it's also ALWAYS making sure there's no 'toilet' or 'exit' sign in the background or above someone's head, and thinking about the report and what picture may best epitomise its content for the Front page, top of the page (header), and within the text to better communicate what the words speak of - and how to frame it.
If you're going out to photograph, for instance, an environmental area, do a little research on what you hope to find there (plants, wildlife, iconic landmarks) so you're prepared for what you want to get pictures of and where you're more likely to find those subjects in that place.
Although there can be some great 'flukes' - those great shots that live on forever - if you go into it visually thinking about how you want it to look, you may come out with something close to what you want.
It's also good to take shots into or of all compass points - things change and if you keep a cache of what it looked like before, you will have something to add depth to how it looks after. In building a picture library like this, the adding dates and captions will help with finding that one particular one you know you took once you have taken half a gazillion shots by 20 years later.
On the technical side of a phone, before their walk Joe advised:
''Before she sees me, tell her to do some pre-work on photo composition using RULE OF THIRDS. Type that into Google and see some examples of photos taken & cropped with Rule of Thirds.
Also she should go to Settings on her camera & open a 3 x 3 grid lines on her camera.
My experience is with Android mobile phones.''
The 'cadets' shots were great, but as she was reassigned to the 2025 Titles, and there are others requesting these insights, Joe's advice plus his photos from that stroll run as the first Pictorial for December 2025.
The way to get better at photography is to practice, to take shots - and also remember your equipment can go out of focus, so take more than one shot so you don't get back to the office thinking you got it and find you took just one or three out-of-focus shots - all useless. Keep a soft cloth with you, like those used for cleaning glasses, so when you're standing around in the rain at a carnival with saltwater being blown into your lens, you can give it a clean and get clear shots again.
Basics - but a start.
Thank you Geoff, Michael and Joe!
Joe's pics:
